In this theatre monologue, Bruno Vanden Broecke plays one of the most legendary philosophers in history. A few hours before his death, he reflects on his life and thought. This production demonstrates that 2400 years later, Socrates’ contributions to philosophy are still as relevant as ever.

An apparently endless chain of murders and blood feuds: this is the plot of the Oresteia. In Orestes in Mosul, Milo Rau combines the tragedy of tragedies with contemporary political conflicts. How will the chain of violence between the parties in the Syrian-Iraqi civil war and their international allies ever come to an end? With an ensemble of Iraqi and European actors, Rau presents an Oresteia for our time.

Under the title Hyperpresent, five contemporary thinkers will give a talk on a new idea that they introduced themselves. Afterwards, they will engage in a conversation with philosopher Laurent De Sutter – who curated this series. American architect, urbanist, writer, and professor at Yale University Keller Easterling will talk this evening about the Extrastatecraft.

It is the most sensational event of the past year: the massive protest of young people against the climate impasse. This Generation Hope holds up a mirror to politicians and has catapulted the climate crisis to the centre of our social debate. Ecopolis 2019 is a special edition for but especially with #GenerationHope, on the theme of a sustainable future on a liveable planet.

In 1994, Jan Decorte wrote his inimitable theatre script Bloetwollefduivel: a jet-black abstraction of the ultimate play about evil: Shakespeare’s Macbeth. body a.k.a. starts from this iconic text but seeks to ward off evil and to turn the downwards spiral into an ecstatic high. Jan Decorte, Sigrid Vinks, Benny Claessens and Lisah Adeaga engage in the battle body and soul.

Johan Heldenbergh-as-Marx reflects on an eventful life and body of thought. Where did he make mistakes? And where has he been proved right? Can his philosophy still be relevant and liberating? In times of uncertainty and growing inequality, Marx aims to be a confrontational, critical, and impassioned plea for freedom and human dignity.

All the Good is a story with a double autobiographical background: on the one hand, the life of Israeli elite soldier and war veteran Elik Niv, and on the other, Jan Lauwers’ life with Grace Ellen Barkey and their children – in a house and workspace in Molenbeek. It is love story in an age in which Europe is throwing its values to the wind and a growing group of people is being seduced by hate and intolerance.

Under the title Hyperpresent, five contemporary thinkers will give a talk on a new idea that they introduced themselves. Afterwards, they will engage in a conversation with philosopher Laurent De Sutter – who curated this series. Boris Groys is an art critic, media theorist and philosopher. He is professor at New York University. His work is dedicated to the exploration of the link between socialism, modernism, contemporary art and media and technology.

The first talk shows aired in the 1950s and they have determined the evening rhythm in many living rooms ever since. But the invention of the internet has definitively pushed the format into decline. In TALK SHOW, Suze Milius bids them farewell. It is both a retrospective and a look ahead into the future, an attempt to ascribe value to everything that gradually disappears, and an ode to the details of our existence.

On a bare stage under bright light, six hapless clowns do their best to get along and pass the time. They fight and chase in eruptions of uneasy mayhem, then cool off a little, settle and wait for the whole thing to kick off again. Carefully unbalanced between funny and not funny, Out Of Order is the ruins of a show in the ruins of a world.

In their search for Arabic literature, tg STAN sought and found allies at the Nomadic Arts Centre Moussem, and among the theatremakers of Kloppend Hert, the company led by Haider Al Timimi. Eight performers go in search of answers to questions that are essential to them, in a cross-border space where multiple influences can blend into one whole. But it begins at the beginning: an open forum and conversation.

1974, Zaire. In the Fight of the Century, Muhammad Ali defeated George Foreman. Mobutu Sese Seko founded the National Ballet of Zaire. Fast forward to 2019. Faustin Linyekula has created a production in which he reflects on key moments in the history of theatre. Along with three members of the Congolese National Ballet and actors Papy Maurice Mbwiti and Oscar van Rompay, he explores what the young Congolese state could have become.

Under the title Hyperpresent, five contemporary thinkers will give a talk on a new idea that they introduced themselves. Afterwards, they will engage in a conversation with philosopher Laurent De Sutter – who curated this series. Graham Harman is professor of philosophy at SCI-Arc in Los Angeles. His work on the metaphysics of object led to the development of Object-Oriented Ontology. He is a central figure in the Speculative Realism movement in contemporary philosophy.

Under the title Hyperpresent, five contemporary thinkers will give a talk on a new idea that they introduced themselves. Afterwards, they will engage in a conversation with philosopher Laurent De Sutter – who curated this series. Rosi Braidotti is a philosopher and feminist theorist. Her work explores the transformation of the subjective induced by the technical and political shifts of the present.

In the first part of Suite n° 4, recognizable and anonymous voices overlap as though they were coming from different acoustic spaces. In the second part, the voices are accompanied by eight musicians from Ictus. The Encyclopédie de la parole collective presents a performance about absence, like an opera without singers or a theatre without actors. For 150 minutes, you hear a thousand concrete situations in more than 30 languages.

For this adaption of Bertrand Tavernier’s film Coup de Torchon (1981), Guy Cassiers is collaborating with the theatre collective LAZARUS – a confrontation between scenographic precision and rowdy playfulness. The creators are serving an uncomfortable fable about the moral bankruptcy of a society that looks very much like our own. It is a universe full of grotesque characters that teeter on the edge of the abyss.

On the eve of the European, federal and regional elections, The Political Party is organizing an alternative election show to offer a stage to the opinionmakers of tomorrow. Europe, access to justice, labour and precarity, ecology, democracy, decolonization, education, public health: nine young, progressive will explore these eight themes. How will we face and tackle the challenges of today and tomorrow together?

For the seventh edition of the Night of Knowledge on Brussels, researchers and experts from Brussels are joining forces to draw up a polyphonic overview of the major challenges facing Brussels today and to question both citizens and politicians about possible solutions and alternatives. This rich encounter alternates between varied scientific syntheses, debates, quizzes and musical interludes.

How do artists let the story they want to tell determine if their work will become a film, a sculpture, a painting, an installation, a choreography or performance? What negotiations take place when they appropriate different disciplinary specialisms? How do they play with their spatial and temporal parameters? What is the politics of indisciplinary practices?

To open Performatik19, Tate Modern performance curator Catherine Wood discusses her recently published book Performance in Contemporary Art with artist Jimmy Robert. Curator Daniel Blanga-Gubbay will moderate the conversation.

Unfortunately, we have to cancel all shows due to the refusal of visas for the Congolese actors/dancers.

What is theatre? What do emotions and history signify on the stage? Faustin Linyekula shows his personal perspective on the history of dance and theatre in Africa. To what extent does the past define the present and even the future? Accompanied by music by Ray Lema, he challenges the basic techniques of “real theatre”.